Senate Republicans still haven’t figured out how to defund Obamacare and keep funding the government.

Competing factions of the party are arguing over just how aggressive they should be in seeking to dismantle the health care law.

On one side, about one-third of the 46-member Republican Conference has signed on to a strategy to oppose any spending bill that contains Obamacare funding — a tally that has sputtered of late and remains stuck at 14.

On the other, a large chunk of Senate Republicans has turned its back on that strategy, arguing it could once again paint the GOP as the “government shutdown party” as the country careens toward a Sept. 30 deadline to keep the government funded.

The Senate’s discord is spilling over to the House, where Republican leaders thought they could satisfy both camps by forcing the Senate to take two separate votes: one on a continuing resolution that would keep the government running into December and another on defunding Obamacare.

But opposition to that plan fueled by Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah caused a rebellion among House conservatives, delaying a vote on the House measure.

“They’re screwing us,” fumed a House GOP aide who had hoped that giving Senate Republicans yet another opportunity to unanimously oppose Obamacare would be enough to satisfy two of the most prominent Senate conservatives.

Instead, Cruz and Lee have resisted the House approach because the Democratic-controlled Senate would surely vote to keep the government funded and easily defeat the Obamacare defunding component. Cruz called the approach “procedural chicanery” and asserted that the House GOP would be “complicit in the disaster that is Obamacare” if it supported the maneuver.

“Not a fan,” Lee told POLITICO. “We need the House to pass a [bill] that funds everything else at current levels and contains a defunding provision.”

That sentiment helped ramp up opposition among the two dozen or so House Republicans that take cues from the two senators, the House GOP aide said.

Outside groups warned Republicans to get away from the two-step approach, which House GOP leadership still hopes will be considered next week. Those opposing the tactic include conservative stalwarts like FreedomWorks, Heritage Action for America, Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

“We don’t want any parliamentary tricks,” said Dean Clancy, FreedomWorks vice president of public policy. “Just have a vote and send a bill to the Senate that defunds Obamacare.”

Senate Democrats said they would go along with the House approach and take another vote on Obamacare in order to get a clean funding resolution. They’ve already voted multiple times on defunding Obamacare, which would mean no new storyline or attack advertisements could be sprung on vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection who already have voted to keep the health care law, a Senate Democratic aide argued.

But if the House were to follow Lee’s prescription, that calculus would change.

“Nothing that monkeys with Obamacare would pass the Senate,” the aide said.

Some Republican senators said they would most likely go along with House leadership’s measure that would give the Senate separate votes on government funding and Obamacare. It’s not a perfect plan, said Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, but it might work.

Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota said that Republicans don’t need any whipping to oppose Obamacare — it’s the Democrats who are the question mark.

“Every member of our caucus would support repeal and replace,” Hoeven said. “Would we get some Democrats? Maybe, depending on what the House puts in the package.”

Coats didn’t sign on to the Lee letter, calling on lawmakers to oppose any funding bill that doesn’t strip money for Obamacare, and Lee and Cruz’s approach remains unpopular outside of the dozen Republicans who have joined their efforts. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the longest-serving Senate conservatives, dismissed the gambit on Wednesday as an “old story” and a strategy that “isn’t based on facts.”

But Lee argues that he and his co-signers have come a long way in influencing the debate over a continuing resolution — and possibly tanking House leadership’s strategy of trying to satisfy Obamacare opponents while also avoiding the blame of a government shutdown.

“Having it out there helped define the terms of the CR debate,” Lee said. “Another thing it has done is it’s helped unify the movement to push Congress to listen to the American people about their concerns about Obamacare.”

Aides in both parties dismissed that logic, arguing that the 14 signers — which also include rising GOP stars Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida — would have opposed a continuing resolution regardless of the Obamacare component. Indeed, outside conservative groups don’t expect a single one of those who signed on to the Lee letter to waffle and support any bill with Obamacare funding.

“I’d be really surprised if any of these guys voted for a CR that funds Obamacare,” said Dan Holler, Heritage Action for America’s communications director.

But Congress is a numbers game, and Senate Republicans need all but five members of their caucus in order to block legislation that Democrats universally support — precisely the scenario that would result if a stopgap funding bill were sent over that still funds Obamacare. One Senate Republican aide called Lee letter signers “irrelevant.”

“If you have 41 on a letter, that’s something. You have 14,” the aide quipped.

And not everyone who supports the strategy of tanking funding bills that continue implementation dollars for Obamacare is laser-focused like Lee and Cruz. Paul told POLITICO he’s actually more worried about government funding bills that exceed Budget Control Act levels, referring to a bipartisan 2011 law that established the automatic budget cuts of the sequester and set hard spending caps.

“If you exceed the numbers, I think conservatives like myself are going to raise hell. Because that’s a complete capitulation and surrender to me. It’s probably bigger than Obamacare,” Paul said.

Still, Paul agreed broadly with Lee that they have influenced the debate in Washington, though he added that Republicans can’t expect to get their way on halting Obamacare when they only control the House. Instead, he hoped their position would eventually lead to Democrats capitulating with Republicans to water down the health care law, perhaps when Congress will be called upon to raise the debt ceiling.

“I’ve been in favor of defunding it because I think we then use a leverage of the House to get a compromise that is somewhere in between Democrats and Republicans,” Paul said. “I don’t think you ever get to that compromise if you don’t stake out that position.”